I was waiting to do this entry until I got my elephant-lifting e-mail, and today was the day.
1. Weigh less and move more.
Once again, I finished a month not weighing any less than the month before. That’s discouraging, but given that I didn’t weigh any more either, it could have been worse. I am hopeful that June will be a bit better, as I’ve been logging my food again, and that’s really the only way I’ve ever succeeded at weight loss for more than a few weeks at a time.
On to better news: I had a pretty darn good month of exercise. I made it to the gym consistently in May and lifted 20.2 elephant equivalents, up from 12.1 in April and not that far off of my record of 21.6. But the best part of my May workouts was getting back to my favorite kind of running—outside, on the pavement. (How crazy is it that I have a favorite kind of running? Such a thing would have been inconceivable to me only a few years ago.) As I mentioned last month, I’d started doing some laps on the cushy indoor track at the gym; by mid-May I’d worked up to half a mile at a time without aggravating my foot pain. Then one weekend Mr. Karen decided to go mountain biking, and I tagged along to enjoy the walking/jogging trails in the same park. I decided I’d just try running them, as I had before. I clicked in my Nike+ for the first time in over three months and told myself I’d just see how much I could do comfortably (well, as comfortable as running ever is for me). It went way better than I expected, and since then I’ve hit the streets a few more times. My foot pain isn’t 100% gone, and my IT band is starting to act up a bit again, but it’s all quite manageable with ice and stretching and the occasional dose of Vitamin I (aka ibuprofen). I’m excited to be back at it. Now that I am, I need to start slowly ramping up my weekly distance.
2. Keep less and organize more.
I still haven’t setup a good way to keep track of my progress here. I did give away the baby quilts; that’s a tiny bit less stuff in my house. The only decent bit of organization I can think of that I accomplished in May was rounding up all the fabric stash that had made its way downstairs and getting it back upstairs with the rest of the collection.
3. Surf less and contribute more.
My spreadsheet tells me I did pretty well here. The highlights: I finished post-processing two projects for Distributed Proofreaders and averaged more than a page a day in the rounds, while I added 72 memorials and 110 pictures to Find a Grave. I also re-connected with two groups of online friends I’d lost touch with for a while. The low: I didn’t do much at QuiltGroup; I’m not sure if there’s just not critical mass there yet or if there’s something in the structure or layout that discourages communication, but it’s been hard for me to engage the way I do at Ravelry.
So overall, May was a good month. For June, I want to, at a minimum:
1) Make it to the gym 8 times.
2) Run 10 times.
3) Donate two 14-gallon bags of clothes and 1 box of books.
4) Complete one organization project at home.
5) Finish 2 DP projects, proof/format a page a day, and add one memorial or photo a day.
Powered by WordPress